PSYA1: Eyewitness Testimony

Weapons Effect

Loftus. Anxiety is shown to decrease the accracy of eyewitness testimony. Only 33% could identify a man from photographs after he passed the door brandishing a bloodstained knife after an argument next door. Anxiety was created would of been due to the bloddy knife which distracted attention from the mans face.

Leading Questions

This is post event questions with false or misleading infomation. It will distort eyewitness recall if the infomation presented appears realistic and probible. Memories on their own are not accurate replicas of the event and risk being completely distorted by misleading questions. Loftus and Palmers study of a car crash confirmed this. They used words…